Engllishman secures his fourth victory on the European Tour with the Dubai Desert Classic title
Danny Willett won the Omega Dubai Desert Classic by one shot after draining a 15ft putt on the final hole.
In securing the Dubai Desert Classic title, Willett became the sixth man this season in the eight European tour events thus far to win having entered the final day atop the leaderboard.
The Englishman had started the day with a one-shot lead, which he had extended to three shots with birdies on 12 and 13. However Willett dropped shot on 14 and a birdie on the last from Andy Sullivan and birdies on 17 and 18 by Rafa Cabrera-Bello meant he needed to make a sloping left to right putt for the title.
“Ecstatic,” he declared himself as afterwards. “You can't buy that feeling, coming down the back nine, the back three, in contention in a golf tournament. It's something that you can't pay for in life. You've got to earn it. It's just nice to know that I can dig deep there and produce.”
The putt dropping meant that Willett finished on 19 under and there was no three-way play-off. Instead Sullivan and Cabrera-Bello shared second place.
Pre-tournament favourite and defending champion Rory McIlroy finished with a 65 and in a tie for 6th place.
Four talking points from the Omega Dubai Desert Classic: 1. It is Willett’s fourth European Tour victory. This was a tournament where experience of winning seemed to matter - every one of the last seven pairings for Sunday's final round had won on the European Tour.
2. For Andy Sullivan it extended his bitter-sweet experience in Dubai,. It is the second consecutive tournament in this emirate where has finished runner-up, after coming second to Rory McIlroy at the DP World Tour Championship in November.
3. For the second week running Cabrera-Bello, winner here in 2012, finished in a share of second.
4. Should we be worried about fixing in golf? The announcer welcomed Rory McIlroy to the tee as the ‘2019 Dubai Desert Classic champion’. Mind you he could well prove right, so maybe instead we should just ask him for next week’s lottery numbers?
Dubai Desert Classic Emirates GC, Dubai, UAE Feb 4-7 Purse: $2,650,000, par 72
1 Danny Willett 70 65 65 69 269 $523,471 T2 Andy Sullivan 70 66 66 68 270 $272,800 T2 Rafael Cabrera-Bello 67 67 67 69 270 $272,800 T4 Alvaro Quiros 68 69 70 65 272 $145,109 T4 Byeong-Hun An 71 67 69 65 272 $145,109 T6 Rory McIlroy 68 72 68 65 273 $102,079 T6 Henrik Stenson 69 68 70 66 273 $102,079 T8 Alejandro Canizares 71 69 68 66 274 $58,538 T8 Tyrrell Hatton 70 70 68 66 274 $58,538 T8 Thorbjorn Olesen 72 64 70 68 274 $58,538 T8 Soren Kjeldsen 70 70 66 68 274 $58,538 T8 Chris Wood 68 68 69 69 274 $58,538 T8 Scott Hend 71 68 66 69 274 $58,538 T8 Haydn Porteous 72 66 66 70 274 $58,538 T8 Joost Luiten 69 67 67 71 274 $58,538
Bold type denotes Titleist ball usage
